Richdium presents
Six immersive guides to the greatest historical novels ever written — the authors who wrote them, the worlds they depict, and the history that lives inside their pages.
Sicily · 1860
Il Gattopardo · 1958
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
The twilight of Sicilian aristocracy during the Italian Risorgimento. A dying prince watches a new world replace his own — and finds it strangely familiar.
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Russia · 1805–1820
Война и миръ · 1869
Leo Tolstoy
Napoleon's invasion of Russia, seen through the eyes of aristocrats, soldiers, and peasants. The Mount Everest of world literature.
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Habsburg Empire · 1859–1914
Radetzkymarsch · 1932
Joseph Roth
Three generations of the von Trotta family trace the slow death of the Austro-Hungarian Empire — from heroism to bureaucracy to dissolution.
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Tudor England · 1527–1535
A Novel · 2009
Hilary Mantel
Thomas Cromwell's rise from blacksmith's son to the most powerful man in Tudor England. The Reformation, seen from inside the snake pit.
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Soviet Union · 1942–1943
Жизнь и судьба · 1960
Vasily Grossman
The Battle of Stalingrad and the parallel between Nazism and Stalinism. The KGB arrested this book. A microfilm smuggled it to the world.
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Medieval Italy · 1327
Il nome della rosa · 1980
Umberto Eco
A murder mystery in a medieval abbey becomes a meditation on truth, knowledge, and the dangerous idea that laughter might be holy.
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